Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Bach - 6c.embellishments Trills
Bach - 6c.embellishments Trills
REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/41639944?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
Riemenschneider Bach Institute is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Bach
This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:29:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Performing Bach's Keyboard Music
- Embellishments, Part III, The Trill
By George A. Kochevitsky
New York City
24
This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:29:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
while Eta Harich-Schneider observes that German musicians under Italian
influence occasionally employed this form of trilling as late as the middle
of the eighteenth century.25
25
This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:29:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Of course, Bach was well acquainted with both the French and Italian
styles. Very possibly he was more inclined towards the French style (his
"Table of Ornaments" would seem to bear witness to that), but there is
no proof that he adhered strictly and exclusively to the French manner in
the execution of ornaments. There were, as a matter of fact, exceptions
made to the French rules in his time. Although one does not find excep-
tions to the rule to start trills from the upper auxiliary explicitly stated
in treatises of Bach's time, some musicologists, after thorough and meti-
culous analysis of Bach's works, have found it necessary to accept the fact
of such exceptions. Important evidence supporting this point of view lies
in the fact that when Bach and his pupils wrote trills in ordinary note
values, they sometimes began the trill on the main note. Alfred Kreutz
has called this type of evidence "occular demonstration,"32 while Neumann
terms it " . . . the external evidence . . . deduced from the notation. . . . "33
(See Examples 3 and 4 following the text of this article.)
One can, then, deduce from solid evidence the following rules con-
cerning the performance of trills starting from the main note in Bach's
music:
(See also numbers 3 and 4 of the "common and general rules for
execution of Bach ornaments" BACH , Vol. V, No. 4, p. 28: "Ornam
should not change or blur the melodic outline of a composition,
"Ornaments should not alter the harmonic structure of a composition
26
This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:29:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
tempered Clavier, Bk. II (see Example 5). Johann Philipp Kirnbergers
main-note trill deciphering of Bach's sign jju as employed here illus-
trates the desire to avoid an awkward repetition of the A of the lower
voice while keeping intact the general metro-rhythmical pattern of the
triplet figure. Kirnberger s realization also suggests that the piece was
conceived to move at a rather lively tempo - a tempo in which it would
be inconvenient to trill at a more rapid rate of speed than that implied
by the triplet workings-out.
27
This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:29:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
1. The Fugue in G Major from the W ell-tempered Clavier , Bk. I.
(See Example 8.) Starting the trill on the upper auxiliary in
measures 25 and 26 where the subject appears in inversion
would change the characteristic interval of a seventh into a
sixth, a procedure which would hardly have been Bach's inten-
tion. The trill in this fugue subject must, therefore, begin on
the main note.
The case for the Gigue of the English Suite in D-Minor , with its
abundance of trills, is an interesting one. In the second part of the Gigue ,
the theme is always inverted (except for the statements of the last two
bars where the bass is playing the inversion while the theme appears
simultaneously in the alto in its original form). Though no autograph
of this suite is in existence, Walter Emery states that the correct notation
in the second part of the Gigue ("satisfactorily established") is not
but or - indications of the so-called full-length mor-
dent (F. Couperin's pinc continu) , the trill which starts from the main
note but alternates with its lower auxiliary.40 Such a realization is abso-
lutely logical in view of the inversion. The present writer would also
suggest that the pedalpoint trills in the first part should begin on the
main notes. Such an execution will make the inversion still more complete.
28
This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:29:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
others - though accepting this rule in general - see the necessity for
some exceptions to it.
Trill Duration
29
This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:29:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
reasonable. However, some other musicians hold the view that Bach's
trill is never to be executed in regular sixteenth- or thirty-second note
values.43
C. P. E. Bach, who loved the clavichord and played mostly upon this
instrument, was probably indicating such an execution when he wrote:
"The trill and the mordent . . . must be so performed that the listener
will believe that he is hearing only the original note."47
30
This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:29:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Examples
31
This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:29:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Ex. 6a. Bach, Fugue in F -sharp Major, WTC, II,
BWV 882, meas. 1-2 and proper execution of the same
Ex. 7b. Bach, Fugue in D Minor, meas. 2 (as frequently played today)
32
This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:29:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Ex. 9a. Menuet II from French Suite in D Minor ,
BWV 812, meas. 18, together with realization of trill
from main note showing parallel octaves
33
This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:29:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Ex. 13. Bach, Invention in D Minor,
BWV 775, meas. 12-22 and proper execution of same
Footnotes:
34
This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:29:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
37 Bodky, Interpretation, p. 158.
38 Kreutz, "Ornamentation," pp. 369-370.
39 Ibid., p. 370.
40 Emery, Bach's Ornaments, p. 146.
41 Rosalyn Turek, An Introduction to the Performance of Bach (London: Oxford
University Press, I960), Vol. I, p. 9 and Vol. II, p. 9.
42 See Jorg Demus, Bach am Klavier in sterreichische Musikzeitschrift for Janu-
uary, 1954.
43 Harich-Schneider, p. 41.
44 Ralph Kirkpatrick, ed., J. S. Bach, The Goldberg Variations (New York: G.
Schirmer, 1938), "Preface" and various notes throughout.
45 Johann Joachim Quantz, On Playing the Flute (New York: The Free Press,
1966), p. 102.
46 See Hans M. Linde, Kleine Anleitung zum Verzieren alter Musik (Mainz: B.
Schotts Shne, 1958).
47 C. P. E. Bach, Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments (New
York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1949), p. 150.
35
This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:29:59 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms